Better alone than in bad company

Winner of the German Audiobook Award 2024, Adriana Altaras tells the story of her aunt, the beautiful Teta Jele. A woman who lived to be 101 years old, surviving the Spanish flu, a concentration camp, and her northern Italian mother-in-law. It’s a tale of a loving yet stubborn relationship, and how one learns to embrace life.

When her parents have to flee Zagreb, Adriana goes to live with her aunt in Italy at the age of four. She will return there throughout her life. As a teenager during summer vacations, with her entire graduation class – and with all her lovers, who must withstand her aunt's aristocratic gaze. And when Adriana's husband leaves her after thirty years of marriage, it is her 98-year-old aunt who supports her at Lake Garda with plenty of pasta, pragmatic advice, and bar visits. Unfortunately, they cannot celebrate Teta Jele's hundredth birthday together. Adriana's aunt is in a nursing home, and due to the pandemic, she is not allowed visitors. The two of them talk on the phone more often, reminiscing about Jele's century-long life. The childhood and youth years in Zagreb, the rescue by Giorgio, who brought the aunt to Mantua and whom she married out of gratitude. The love for Fritz Epstein, who fled to Australia just in time. The experience of aging and dealing with one's own history amidst world events.

Adriana Altaras paints a delicate, moving, and at the same time hilariously funny portrait of a wonderfully capricious woman. A comforting, heartfelt audiobook that tells how to embrace life and how to let it go. The audiobook is read by the author and a cinema legend.